The reader may have misgivings about studying a science in which disagreements arise at the very start. His doubts are indeed well founded but should not too quickly turn him away. After all, there are still differences of opinion even in astronomy and phyics, chemistry and biology. Psychology remains a free-for-all. No considerable field of knowledge is so completely understood that all of its scholars speak with the same voice. The process of reaching a balanced conclusion often requires a sifting of the testimony of contradictory witnesses. In any event, stress on differences should not obscure the fact that all sciences, including even economies, agree on many things. There is, besides, an enormous store of historical and descriptive matter—economic facts—that is well worth knowing and concerning which there is little dispute. We shall hope that the burden placed on the reader of suspending judgment and viewing the same things in different lights will not be too heavy.
One of the dominant schools of the day looks upon economics as study of what happens when we try to reconcile the scarcity of things with the insatiable wants of human beings. Most things worth having, except the air we breathe are scarce — scarce enough, at least, to command a price and not to be available to all in generous quantity. Among the less dominant and dissenting schools is one that considers the study of the disposal of scarce goods too restrictive. Some members of this class focus their interest on the moral codes, business practices, social instimtions, legal framework, and the like under which we get our food, clothing, and shelter. They study an economic system — capitalism, for example — in much the same way that an anthropologist studies the Klamath Indians or some primitive tribe of a South Sea island. They ask, and try to answer, questions that have little to do with the disposal of scarce goods.
The student may find it helpful to examine the definitions given below. They represent the thought of several periods and schools. In these definitions the older phrase “political economy” is more or less equal to the modern word “economics.”
Oeconomy, in general, is the art of providing for all the wants of a family, with prudence and frugality …. What oeconomy is in a family, political oeconomy is in a state (Sir James Steuart, 1712-1780).
Writers on Political Economy profess to teach, or to investigate, the nature of Wealth, and the laws of production and distribution: including directly or remotely, the operation of all causes by which the condition of mankind, or of any society of human beings, in respect to this universal object of human desire, is made prosperous or the reverse (John Stuart Mill, 1896-73).
Political Economy treats chiefly of the material interests of nations. It inquires how the various wants of the people of a country, especially those of food, clothing, fuel, shelter, of the sexual instinct etc., may be satisfied; how the satisfaction of these wants influences the aggregate national life, and how in turn, they are influenced by the national life (Wilhelm Roscher, 1817-94).
Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of well being. Thus it is on the one side a study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the study of man (Alfred Marshall, 1842—1924).
Economics is a study of the “community’s methods of turning material things to account” (Thorstein Veblen, 1857—1929)
Economics ... is concerned with that aspect of behavior which arises from the scarcity of means to achieve given ends (Lionel Robbins, 1898— ).
. . . Economics is ... a social science; that is, it deals with the behavior of men in organized communities. Its special province is the behavior of social groups in providing the means for attaining their various ends (Wesley Mitchell, 1874—1948).